Oh man, a moment of movie history, forever marred by a bad breakup!
In a series of comments just unearthed from October, Minnie Driver opened up on social media about one of her most layered, poignant performances ever — being in the audience for the 1998 Oscars!
So a couple months back a movie fan page on Instagram posted a clip of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon winning the Best Screenplay award for Good Will Hunting. And their co-star saw it — and commented! First, she wrote simply, “My face” — followed by tons of laugh emojis.
But separately another commenter noticed, too, writing:
“Minnie looks so sad.”
And Minnie actually responded!
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The actress confirmed what many viewers of the award show at the time suspected — that she was a big ol’ mixed bag of feelings at that ceremony. She should have been on top of the world as her movie reached the peak of cinematic glory… but unfortunately one of the guys up there getting a statue for it had just very publicly dumped her! She wrote:
“Matt had ended our relationship a few weeks before this, and was at the Oscars with his new gf… I was devastated. Wish I could have celebrated more as it was an amazing moment for all of us, and for this wonderful film!”
Damn! So real!
Yeah, for those who don’t remember or weren’t around for the hottest celeb goss of 25 years ago, Matt and Minnie fell in love IRL on the movie, something Minnie later called an “occupational hazard” for young actors.
They dated for months afterward — but something went wrong somewhere along the line. During an interview with Oprah to promote Good Will Hunting, Matt was asked about his love life and said he was single. On freakin’ TV! That’s how he officially broke up with Minnie! She told The LA Times later that year:
“It seemed like a good forum for him to announce to the world that we were no longer together, which I found fantastically inappropriate… Of course, he was busy declaring his love for me on David Letterman a month previously.”
What happened in the interim? Winona Ryder happened, apparently! The story goes that Affleck’s then-girlfriend Gwyneth Paltrow introduced Matt to the Girl, Interrupted star, and sparks flew immediately.
They were already rumored to be dating by the Oscars. While Ben and Matt famously brought their moms as their dates that year, that was a technicality. Their girlfriends were there, since they were also movie stars. Kinda puts a damper on that whole story, huh?
See the full Oscar moment, the salty and the sweet (below):
[Image via Oscars/YouTube.]
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